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Well if you remember at the beginning of the month, I joined a bunch of other bloggers in the Eat From the Pantry Challenge in an effort to eat some of the stockpile. Well if you read recently about my latest Publix shop where I got $276 worth of product, you probably can guess that this has been a challenge. The biggest factor in not eating a lot of stockpile items is that our entire kitchen cabinet inventory is in boxes. We don't have any cabinets while we remodel. I did manage to use of 26 of the 58 items in the freezer, but added 16 more frozen meals and snacks so the net is 48 freezer items (-10 for the challenge).

Things I learned:

1. I get nervous when I get below a par level of certain products - I like to have my regular items and it kills me to pay "buy it now" prices when I could have stockpiled it. I am still learning the appropriate stockpile of some things, but I am realizing that most things I have too many of.

2. I like the feeling of getting a great deal on stuff - I am emotionally addicted to being frugal. It is my nature down to the bone and I like to get a super deal. Couponing is a much better hobby than playing games on the internet, wasting time on social media sites and chatting online.

3. I need to plan meals more - We have food for lots of different meals, but it takes good recipes. I'm starting to notice more on the blogs I read when there is a good recipe for the foods that I've bought on sale.

4. Its hard to eat convenient foods when you're on a diet. I've lost 7 lbs so far in two weeks, but that can't happen eating ice cream, frozen snacks and candy.

One of the happenings going on in blogworld is the Eat From the Pantry Challenge. Its a call to the couponers who've stockpiled and now have an excess inventory of food in the freezer, cupboards, pantry and fridge. The object is to stay out of the stores, and make your meals from the stockpile to use up that food and make room for fresh stuff. Well, I certainly need to do that. Our freezers are bursting and the stockpile shelves are overflowing onto the floor in bags. So for the next month or so, I'm going to try to stay out of Publix and send dear to buy salad fixins and milk. I suggested we use our nonfat dry milk (NFDM) survival supply but that didn't fly. I told him he wouldn't even be able to tell the difference once it was mixed up and refrigerated. I might try that a bit later, a taste test to see. I bet you can't wait to see how that turns out.

Anyway, I did an inventory of the freezers and the pantry to make a list of items we have. This is most items but if I have only one of something like mustard I didn't list it. One thing for sure is we're going to be having lots of chicken salads coming up. We've been having ham on our salads because its been on sale a lot, plus makes for nice breakfast and sandwiches - but with 32 lbs of chicken breasts, we need to eat it up. Another great meal idea is to use up all the smoked sausage in chili and hot dishes, we need to use up a ton of tomato sauce and paste too. Here's the list of items now so hopefully in a month it will be considerably smaller.

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About Me

Frugal living isn’t about self-denial, at least not absolutely.
It’s about logically and purposely putting our resources toward specific
accomplishments. Occasionally, interspersing my frugal life with luxuries is
tremendously rewarding, as long as those luxuries don’t derail me from the
track. In fact, I recommend it.

On some
level, we should all try to be more conscious of where our money goes, and
better understand the connection between our time and work, and between time
and money. This will help us reach our life goals through a combination of watchful
spending and disciplined saving.